Chelsea Paris Metro fans summonsed to appear in court

A Chelsea fan holds up a banner supporting the black man who was victimised on the Paris Metro.

Five men have been ordered to appear before magistrates following racist chants on the Paris Metro before Chelsea’s Champions league game with Paris Saint-germain last month.

Scotland Yard said the summonses related to a police application for football banning orders.

Chelsea fans were filmed singing racist chants and pushing a black man off the train.

Football banning orders can be issued after a conviction for a football-related offence and last for between three and 10 years. They are imposed to prevent troublesome fans going to games in Britain or abroad.

Several Chelsea fans were filmed ahead of a Champions League match on 17 February.

Mobile phone footage recorded showed a black man being pushed from the train while a group chanted: “We’re racist, we’re racist and that’s the way we like it.”

Humiliating
The man who was trying to board the train has been identified as 33-year-old Souleymane Sylla, who dewcribed the episode was “humiliating”.

Chelsea apologised and invited him to attend the return match but he turned the club down.

“I won’t go. They can’t buy me with a little piece of paper. I’m not a child,” Souleymane told RTL radio. “I don’t want to sit in that stadium next to those people who pushed me.”

Souleymane said he was no longer sleeping at night.

“I still hear the voices of those people who pushed me because of the colour of my skin,” he said. “I can’t go to work anymore. I live with racism but it’s the first time I’ve had to go to a doctor to ask for pills to calm myself down.

“I want these people to be prosecuted and justice to be done. Racism must stop.”

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